ACW

Sunday, 13 August 2017

Thank you, Glen Campbell

Sorry this post is late. I'm on holiday in Ireland with a dodgy internet connection.

At school, we all loved ‘Wichita Lineman’, even though we didn’t
know what a ‘lineman’ was. It must be
one of those intriguing American things, we thought. When I found out what it really was, I looked
upon GPO engineers (as they were in those days) in a different light.

As everyone will have read in their
newspapers over the last few days, Glen Campbell, who had a hit with ‘Wichita
Lineman’ in 1968, died, at eighty one, last Tuesday (8 August), after a
long battle with Alzheimer’s. He was
singing to the end, bringing out a new album Adios, with the support of his family.

His voice, simultaneously sexy and wholesome
in that Country and Western way,
ringing out from the transistor radio in my bedroom in Leicester, bared no hint
of the man underneath, a womaniser and a substance abuser. His songs were (are) all about ‘lurve’. His lyrics have an emotional impact that all
writers can learn from, an uumpth factor that makes all listeners’ hearts
somersault inside them (especially teenagers, like me when I first heard it). Listen to the lyrics of Wichita
Lineman:

And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all
timeAnd the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

A hunky telephone engineer,
clambering up tall telegraph poles and working in a hanging cage up in the air,
offering his heart and eternal devotion – what is not to like?

In his tribute in Rolling Stone,
Jimmy Webb, who created the music and lyrics for many of Campbell’s songs, wrote
a moving tribute to him in Rolling
Stone. He tells us that Campbell
wanted ‘to bring every suffering soul within the sound of his voice up a peg or
two. Leave them feeling just a little
tad better about themselves; even though he might have to make them cry a
couple of times to get 'em there.”

Cambell does the ‘making them cry’
in By
The Time I Get to Phoenix in which he lets us into the agony of a breaking
relationship, he travelling around the southern United States and she picking
up notes and laughing in disbelief because it’s all happened before. Much to learn here, from his use of the small
actions, and the use of place names which would be familiar to his Country and Western listeners. Me, the teenager in Leicester, didn’t know
much about Country and Western, or
that Glen Campbell was regarded as a Country
and Western artist. Country and Western blares out in every
gas station and supermarket in the southern and western United States, the
sound of the American white working class, music of resignation and acceptance. Gospel music also has a part in it, but, although
Campbell grew up in the Bible Belt, where ‘Jesus Saves’ banners hang from every
church, every few yards, and punctuate the freeways more frequently than
signposts, he didn’t start off singing Gospel, as Elvis did. In 1980, he turned his back on his rackety lifestyle
and became a Christian. (I have no
details.) In 1981, Momentarily single
and unattached and on a first date, to a restaurant, with Radio City presenter,
Kim Woolen, he bowed his head to say a private grace before starting to
eat. That was the moment Kim decided she
wanted to marry him.

Now, I hear something else in
Campbell’s lyrics, even though they were written before Campbell found Christ, but
bearing it in mind that Jim Webb (who also composed psychedelic hits like MacArthur Park) is also a
Christian. I discern a longing for God,
running away from God in By the Time I
Get to Phoenix and connecting with Him in Dream, ‘needing more than wanting’ in Wichita Lineman. I don’t think
this is what Campbell and Webb intended, but it’s there.

Thank you, Glen Campbell, for all
your music and thoughtful lyrics.

Rosemary Johnson has
had many short stories published, in print and online, amongst other places, in
Alfie Dog Fiction, The Copperfield Review, Circa and Every Day Fiction. In real
life, she is a part-time IT tutor, living in Suffolk with her husband and
cat. Her cat supports her writing by
sitting on her keyboard and deleting large portions of text.